skills-creator

name	skills-creator
description	Scaffold a new agentskills.io SKILL.md from a short description, with the right frontmatter, a focused scope, and a quality checklist
state	active

Skills creator

Use this skill when the user wants to turn a repeatable procedure into a new agent skill. Your job is to produce a single, well-scoped SKILL.md that follows the agentskills.io format and the quality bar set by the network-state-query reference skill in this registry.

Before you write anything

Ask the user for, or infer from context, these four things. Do not skip this step. A skill with a fuzzy scope is worse than no skill.

1. Trigger. In one sentence, when should an agent reach for this skill?
2. Scope. What is explicitly in, and what is explicitly out? A good skill does one job. If you find yourself listing three unrelated jobs, that is three skills.
3. Inputs and outputs. What does the skill need from the user, and what structured result does it produce?
4. Failure modes. What should the agent do when a precondition is not met (tool missing, device unreachable, ambiguous request)? Name the behavior.

If the answer to "should this be a skill?" is unclear, say so. A one-off task that will not recur does not need a skill. Recognizing over-engineering early is itself part of the discipline.

Write the SKILL.md

Produce a directory <name>/SKILL.md with this shape:

---
name: <kebab-case-name>
description: <one line, starts with a verb, says when to use it>
state: draft
---

# <Title>

<One paragraph: what this skill does and when to use it.>

## Steps
<Numbered, deterministic procedure. Each step is an instruction to the agent.>

## Output
<The exact structure the agent should return.>

## Failure modes
<What to do when each precondition fails.>

Rules:

• name is kebab-case and matches the directory name.
• description starts with a verb and states the trigger, because Gridctl serves it as the prompt's one-line summary and that is how the user picks the skill.
• Set state: draft on creation. The author activates it deliberately with gridctl activate <name> once it has been reviewed. Choosing what loads into your agent is part of the lesson.
• Least privilege: name only the tools the skill actually needs. Do not invite the agent to reach for destructive operations.
• Graceful failure: every skill says what to do when a precondition fails.

After writing

1. Save to skills/<name>/SKILL.md (core, curated) or showcase/skills/<name>/SKILL.md (community floor), then load it into the registry (./scripts/load-skills.sh or gridctl skill add).
2. Validate: gridctl skill validate <name>.
3. Activate when ready: gridctl activate <name>.
4. Confirm it appears as a prompt in the connected client.

Output

Return the full SKILL.md content, the path you would save it to, and a two-line note on the scope decisions you made (what you left out and why).